Local referees, chronic disease in soccer: Gabriel Meluk thinks – Colombian Soccer – Sports

Maria Victoria Daza she was about to win the final of the Women’s League and change history in a scandalous way against Santa Fe, the great champion. She, the referee of the most important game of the championship, scored a goal for América right at the end of the first half: the goalkeeper from Santa Fe passed the ball that she had caught with two hands over the penalty line after being obviously pushed by a rival. The judge was close and facing the play: full of security, she validated the score. if not for Ricardo García, in the VAR, a terrifying injustice would have been committed. He reversed her.

But it didn’t stop there: in the second half, Daza ordered a penalty in favor of América for an alleged foul. Once again she was very close and in front of the action and the VAR saved her again: the Santa Fe player hit the ball clean and was the one who received the hit.

(You may be interested in: Women’s League: lights, shadows and outlook for its future)

By the way, nonsense: how is it possible that there was no VAR in the first game of the women’s final? The first game for the title was whistled by candlelight.
María Victoria Daza suffered from the serious chronic disease that referees around the world have: being a local.

It is enough to remember the final match of the home run B of the Men’s League, in which Millionaires beat Medellín 2-1 (DIM) and qualified for the final, in which he was later the champion. That time the judge Carlos Betancur He was also a localist: he did not expel Perlaza for violent soles nor did he give DIM a penalty for stepping on Llinás.

The greatest sin of the referees of the whole world is to be localists. In 2018, the Javeriana University of Bogotá published a study carried out with the Universidad del Pacífico del Perú, in which, after analyzing 1,600 first division matches in South America between 2005 and 2010, “it was shown that referees tend to favor local teams . We only took the games in which the local team won by one goal and we compared them in the variables of stoppage time in the first and second half, penalties, cards and goals scored”, they deduced.

In this same sense, the research by the German economists Thomas Dohmen and Jan Saumermann is famous and cited in other studies, who in 2016 concluded: “Referees tend to be more in favor of the local team, granting them the benefit in certain decisions, such as times discount in even matches, doubtful goal plays, penalties and cards”.

The local judges are not an exclusive evil of football. In the book Scorecasting, researchers Toby Moskowitz and Jon Wertheim analyzed professional baseball, football, and soccer championships in the United States and concluded: “The main advantage factor for home teams is the umpire, who tends to lean in their favor whether it is calling a third strike in baseball or a penalty in soccer. But it is worth emphasizing that in no sport is the referee as decisive in the result as in football, so the advantage of playing at home is more accentuated, although this bias is mostly involuntary”.

Being localists, the general and chronic illness in soccer.

Meluk tells him

GABRIEL MELUK
SPORTS Editor
@MelukLeCuenta